using our brains to save yours

We can’t talk about what we’re doing, so we’re talking about the people doing the work. If you’ve ever been to a show where we were demoing our games, you’ve probably talked to Geoffrey, our Lead Designer for State of Decay. Check out the story of how he came to be here. — Sanya

Not Quite Screwing Everything Up: How I Became a Game Designer

by Geoffrey Card

Chapter One: Natural Disasters
My first foray into game design was when I was seven years old, and I realized that all it took to make a board game was a pen and paper and a die. I used to draw out weird little games that were a cross between Life and Candyland, and they were terrible. It only took one playtest to make it obvious that they weren’t any good, and I had no idea what to do to fix them. So I stopped, and played with Legos instead.

State of Decay: Lifeline drops you into an infested city with a mission to locate key scientists and other valuable civilians, and airlift them to safety.

Your first assignment brings you to an abandoned strip mall on the edge of town. Its empty parking lot has plenty of room to land a helo. Its position next to the highway gives you access to neighborhoods all over the city. And its eight-foot barbed-wire fence gives you a small measure of security. It’s the perfect place to establish your base of operations.

The soldiers in your unit start calling the place Black Friday, because of the crowds of zombies trying to get inside. If you’re lucky, you should only have to hold out for a few days before your mission is over. If you’re not…well, there are worse places to die.

One of the interesting things about the military is the way it brings people together from every part of life, and puts them in the same boat (or tank, or helo, or humvee).

Greyhound One, the unit you control in State of Decay: Lifeline, includes a wide range of different characters with their own personalities and attitudes. Which ones will you try the hardest to keep alive?

One major goal of our DLC is to explore new perspectives — to find interesting people in the world of State of Decay whose lives we haven’t experienced yet, and see what it’s like to face the crisis from where they stand.

This is what led us to create State of Decay: Lifeline — an expansion that explores the military side of the zombie apocalypse.

“In England, we have a saying for a situation such as this … which is that it’s difficult difficult lemon difficult.” — Simon Foster, In the Loop

One thing we know our community has been looking for is a new challenge. You’ve spent all this time mastering the game, and you want somewhere to go to truly test your skills.

State of Decay: Breakdown is designed to bring on that challenge. As you progress through each iteration of the game, the scenario gets tougher and tougher. The game is daring you to try and survive, and is ramping up the difficulty each time you do.